Early Education, Child care, and Immigrant New York

New York may be the iconic immigrant city, but for newcomers it’s not exactly a model of simplicity, at least when it comes to government services, says a new report by the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP).

Mirroring national trends, more than half of New Yorkers under the age of six live in immigrant families, including many (one in four, according to the Urban Institute) under the poverty line who are technically eligible for child care subsidies. Yet few immigrant families know the options for free or low-cost early child education programs such as Head Start available to their children, according to the report’s authors.

“A large portion of the immigrant community is being left out of essential systems of child care due to the inability of service providers to connect effectively with these children and families,” reads the report. “Language barriers, immigrant status, general distrust of the government, and cultural stigma further undermine efficient delivery of services.”

But neither candidate has touched the potentially incendiary topic of language accessibility of government services—which, according to the CACF report, may well be the single greatest barrier for immigrant families seeking early childhood services in New York City.

Since 2003, following passage of the “Equal Access to Human Services” local law, New York public assistance workers and other city employees are supposed to be able to communicate with the city’s 8 million immigrants when they seek assistance. Yet advocates say much is still lost in translation for newcomer parents.

A 2007 report issued by several immigrant grassroots and advocacy groups and Advocates for Children reported that two-thirds of immigrant parents didn’t even receive their child’s public school report cards translated into the language they spoke at home.

About Suman Raghunathan

Suman Ragunathan is a former Feet in 2 Worlds contributor. Suman is an experienced immigration and public policy analyst and consultant, with expertise spanning the grassroots, advocacy, and policy worlds.